Mixed Grill for Dad's Day
Canon 1D Mk III, 85mm f1.2, f4.5, 1/80, iso 400
Photography being my number one hobby, what is number two? Cooking! I started cooking young, about 10 years of age. My mom was sick a lot, and my dad traveled extensively for work. Sometimes my mom would tell me how to make something, while lying in bed. Cooking has never been a chore for me. I was probably the only 13 year old combing each month's Sunset magazine for recipes I could make.
When I started working in restaurants in college, I began getting exposed to finer foods, and cooking them myself. I now have even more kitchen gear than photo gear! And a kitchen I really love to cook in.
Now I have done numerous hired food shoots, and I like to think I have a knack for food photography. But photographing my own food is often a different story. For starters, me and the guests are READY to eat by the time the dish is ready for food modeling! And somehow it doesn't seem like I have various items around to stage the food and plates like I do in a restaurant setting. So I don't have a lot of images of the food I make, but I did give it a go last Sunday.
The family offered to take me out, and friends asked us to go out, but I really wanted to be at home. So as I thought about what to make, I realized I didn't want to create a big mess for everyone to have to clean up. And I didn't want to spend hours either. Have to go with something on the BBQ.
So I decided on a "mixed grill," which are several different protein items, cooked on the grill. Underneath all that yumminess is a platterfull of jasmine rice, which I flavored with a very light balsamic vinaigrette.
Where I live in Granite Bay we are fortunate to have a real meat market, with all natural meats and seafood: Vande Rose Meat Market. I love this place. I went down and got a couple of marinated chicken breasts, some marinated filet mignons, some scallops (my own fave) and some peeled/deveined shrimp. The point here was minimal work for me. When I got them back, I dumped the scallops and shrimp in an easy OJ based marinade.
I cut up a pineapple and grilled that up. Grilled some carrots and zucchini in the grill basket. Then I cooked the meat items starting with the filet as it would take the longest. You cook them in order so that they all get done at the same time. The shrimp are last as they only take about 2 minutes. Assemble all this on top of the rice, garnish with a little italian parsley and we are done.
A few quick shots then it was time to dig in. We are talking memorable here.
Oh yes, before all this got going, I made a couple of gin fizzes to get the party going:
We were going to have some Dad's root beer, but it is getting hard to locate. Darn.
